Kassam rocket strikes family home in Sderot

Residents recall feeling the "entire house shake" as Kassam rockets fired hit front yard of a family home.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
Sderot Kassam Damage 390 (photo credit: Pnina Buhbut)
Sderot Kassam Damage 390
(photo credit: Pnina Buhbut)
Hamas continued to fire Kassam rockets into Sderot, hitting the front yard of a family’s house on Tuesday and shattering its windows.
Shiran Buhbut told The Jerusalem Post that she “felt the entire house shake and saw the lights blinking.”
She managed to seek safety in the home’s concrete shelter and suffered no physical injuries.
The rocket smashed into the concrete in the front yard, causing a gaping hole and destroying statues in front of the house. It sent shrapnel flying into the front door, and the intensity of the explosion caused the house’s windows to shatter. Couches in the living room were punctuated with broken glass.
Buhbut was visiting her sister Pnina, who lives in the house with her husband and two small children, ages seven and one-and-a-half.
Click for full JPost coverage
Click for full JPost coverage
She told the Post that “this situation is not new,” adding, “We have lived this [a life of rocket attacks] for 12 years.”
As she showed the Post the damage to her house, the city’s sirens went off, and the family, along with this reporter, ran into the shelter in the back of the house. The Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted the rocket, according to a security expert in the area.
“Every day there is a Kassam from Gaza,” said Pnina.
“All the children live in trauma.”
Since Operation Pillar of Defense started last week, the four family members have slept in the small shelter room.
“Hamas is terrorism, and not a government,” Pnina asserted.
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch appeared at the Buhbut house to inspect the damage and talk with the residents.
Maksim Buhbut, Pnina and Shiran’s Moroccan-born father, told Aharonovitch, “We have only one country in the world. The Arabs have 22. We love Israel and we hope to stay in Sderot.”
The minister listened and nodded his head, and said, “Very good.”
Speaking during an appearance in Sderot, Deputy Minister for the Development of the Negev Ayoub Kara told the Post that Israel must “cut the leadership of Hamas” because the Hamas movement wanted to kill everyone.
He stressed repeatedly the importance of knocking out the Hamas decision-makers.
“I know the mentality in the Middle East,” he said, explaining that one had to come from a position of strength and power to deal with organizations like Hamas.
Former Sderot mayor Eli Moyal told the Post that it was not a question of Hamas’s rocket arsenal, but of the group’s motivation to continue launching rockets.
He said Hamas had “to pay a high, high price” for the attacks.
Asked what price, he said, “What we are now doing, killing [Hamas] commanders.”
A group of young Sderot residents marched in front of the police station with Israeli flags, singing that “the people of Israel are alive.” Police officials at the station showed the Post the Kassam rocket launched on Monday.
Pnina, echoing her father’s sentiments, stated that “after the Shoah, we don’t have any place to go. In Europe, the Germans killed us. The Arabs have 22 countries.”
She stressed that the world needed to know what the residents were experiencing because of Hamas terrorism.